


disappear (i am with you 'til the end)

by TimeTurnedFragile



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Feels, Gen, M/M, Road Trips, sorta?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-07 14:19:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18412382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimeTurnedFragile/pseuds/TimeTurnedFragile
Summary: There are fifty three minutes left to check into their flight.Brian gets up, walks away. He doesn't check onto that flight. The plane takes off without him, with his bandmates on it.





	disappear (i am with you 'til the end)

So, here's what happens.

 

They're sitting in an airport.

 

Freddie's talking to someone on his phone; Deaky is curled in an uncomfortable airport chair reading a comic book, and Roger is bobbing his head silently as he scrolls through his iPod. They're in an insulated little corner. The noise and bustle from the rest of the airport is distant- muted, swirling in eddies of audio, nearly unreachable underneath the ringing in Brian’s ears. Brian's eyes keep closing.

 

Brian fiddles with the ends of his hair, tugs at the zipper of his hoody. Even though they've stayed in hotels every night since they flew in and there's been no shortage of hot water, Brian's skin feels gritty and unclean. There's always a fine coating of dust over everything in Australia . Everything is tinder dry and volatile, the veneer of civilization being eaten away at the edges by wilderness. It feels like a city on the brink of being nowhere at all, and at the moment, nothing could make more sense to Brian.

 

Mostly, Brian just feels fucking tired.

 

On the phone, Freddie agrees enthusiastically with someone, nearly vibrating with energy and laughter, and something uncurls in Brian's gut. Freddie was Brian's first kiss with a man- he's also Brian's most recent (a bet, two months ago, and before that a stretch devoid of almost any physical contact at all, in the way of all adults). Freddie fucking Mercury, sharp and glitzy and painfully out of place anywhere but on stage. Always, always, liked a cutout that reflects light wrong, shadow playing in all the wrong places. Brian thinks for a moment how he could get lost in the nowhere, and then thinks again. Right now, Freddie is agreeing with something that means they’ll have to get up, go go go, play and sing and schmooze.

 

Brian is so, so tired. Too tired to be angry. Too tired to sleep.

 

There are fifty three minutes left to check into their flight.

 

Brian gets up, walks away. He touches Rogers’s arm as he passes. Roger’s skin is warm and it makes Brian’s fingers tingle. He looks up and Brian smiles. Roger smiles back, owlish through his sunglasses.

 

He doesn't check onto that flight. The plane takes off without him, with his bandmates on it.

 

* * *

 

“What the fuck do you mean, no-“

 

Freddie’s stomach clenches and churns and he snarls, stepping forward. John’s hand on his arm is the only thing that stops him from breaking the airline representative’s nose. Roger has his phone up to his ear, is talking quickly and urgently. Freddie feels a wave of frantic crest and break in his chest.

 

It’s just the exhaustion showing, but when he steps back, his eyes sting. He knuckles away the dampness and turns on his heel, walking off. Behind him, the airline representative is still talking.

 

Airline answer:  _just because you can’t find your guitarist, doesn’t mean other people on the plane don’t have plans. Stay or go._

 

Frantic is replaced with fault, and  ~~something~~  everything in Freddie’s stomach burns like acid.

 

* * *

 

Brian’s phone is off.

 

* * *

 

Brian’s phone is never off.

 

* * *

 

Brian turns his phone back on when the plane lands in LA. He flips it open, puts it to his ear. The first voicemail is Freddie flipping his shit, swearing and calling him a son of a bitch. So is the second. The third in Roger, sounding worried. Fourth is Freddie, calling him a bastard and a cunt and a fucking arsehole for 33 seconds exactly. Fifth is John, asking Brian to call them.

 

Sixth is Freddie, muttering weakly into his phone. Brian catches phrases like  _sorry and I don’t know what I did and seriously, please just call. Please just tell me you’re safe. That’s all I want, Bri. Please just be safe._

 

Brian flips his phone shut, and scrubs at his eyes with his sleeve. Points at a car and signs his name on the rental papers.

 

* * *

 

Its two hours after they land in London that Roger gets a text message.

 

_All is well. Taking a bit a road trip in the states. See you in a while._

 

Sixth, seventh and eighth voicemails on Brian’s phone are Freddie swearing. The eighth cuts off abruptly as John takes the phone off him and says, “Brian, look. Call or something. You’re a twat, by the way. If you needed fucking time alone or something-“. John’s voice is drowned out by Freddie yelling in the background  _fucking bastard_  and Roger yelling back  _jesus fucking christ, Freddie, shut the fuck up already_.

 

 Ninth is Miami, politely and efficiently reaming Brian out for disappearing into thin air in a foreign country.

 

Actually, the phrase he uses is ‘pulling a Freddie’.

 

* * *

 

 

Brian turns on the radio, flicks through static and sugary-pop. Turns it off when he hears the opening bars of Bohemian Rhapsody.

 

This is the right road. The silence reverberates around him.

 

* * *

 

Brian stops two and a half hours later. He buys a shitty map and stares at it for a long time, then gets back in the car and turns around. Fifteen minutes back up the road he just drove down, he stops at a post office. He buys a better map, an envelope and a red marker. On the new map, he carefully crosses out Tijuana , and draws a dotted line towards Phoenix . He folds the new map, pressing new creases into the glossy paper, and then shoves it into the envelope. One of the corners gets horrifically mangled, and Brian laughs to himself.

 

He scribbles  _Freddie Mercury_  and the address on the front, sticks on a stamp and slides it into the mailbox.

 

Tijuana is probably a crappy idea- Brian doesn’t even like the beach.

 

* * *

 

Six hours behind the wheel, and Brian suddenly feels jet-lag and just plain exhaustion whammy him so hard he flinches. He pulls over at the next motel, checks in. The décor is tacky and old and everything creaks.

 

It feels familiar, but empty. He’s been here, a million times before, in between shitty gigs and hours in a van crammed between amps and merch and the boys.

 

Brian can almost hear Freddie in the bathroom, dropping his toothbrush on the counter, Roger and Deaky in the next room murmuring quietly.

 

He closes his eyes and revels in the silence instead.

 

* * *

 

Freddie cancels everything- interviews, appearances, everything. Instead, he sits at home and tries to write. He throws out everything he comes up with, because it’s all self pitying and features the word ‘why’ way too much. There’s a fight going on in Freddie’s head, with half of Freddie’s brain insisting that it was no big deal and that Brian will be back soon soon soon. The other half insists that it’s the end of the world. Freddie ignores both sides and chews listlessly on pop tarts and throws things at his walls.

 

John, Miami, and Roger stop by in that order. They all bring food.

 

“Should we call the cops?” Freddie asks John.

 

John shrugs one shoulder.

 

“No. He said he was coming home, after all.” John bites his lip. “Also, he’s not fifteen, Freddie. They wouldn’t do anything, anyway.”

 

In the background, Miami shuffles his feet and rearranges the stuff on Freddie’s kitchen counter.  _Fuck it_ , Freddie thinks.  _Call them anyway._

 

He just wants someone to know that Brian isn’t where he’s meant to be, that he wants him back. Wants him to come back. Roger’s hand on his arm tells him that someone already does.

 

* * *

 

That night, Freddie takes a sleeping pills for the first time in ages. He wakes up eighteen hours later, disoriented, muddled and furious.

 

* * *

 

Brian gets up, checks out. Gets back in the car and drives straight through Albuquerque. Stops once for food at a diner that’s all ‘60’s cliché and formica tabletops and checkered counters. The sign advertises it as ‘authentic Route 66’, and it’s just enough to pull Brian away from the endless stretch of bitumen in front of his headlights. Brian snaps a photo on his phone of the excessive neon and the pastel colors of the waitresses’ uniforms and sends it to Roger without thinking about it too much.. It’s like stepping into a time warp, Elvis playing softly on the honest to god vintage jukebox. He drinks coffee until he has to piss, and then goes back for another cup. Makes eye contact with the waitress shyly as she flirts, her smile wide and genuine. Brian boots up his laptop and messes with some of his own stuff he’s been working on, quietly and away from the band’s eyes, right there at the counter, absently sipping his coffee. He deletes some of it, and lays down the fleeting rhythm he’s had looping in his head for the last hundred miles or so and saves. He likes it better than anything he’s come up with for the band in the last month. Since the last time Freddie kisses him, not that he’d ever admit it. Not that he’d think about how he knows exactly how long it’s been. It’s aimless; more fiddling than anything, and for once it’s frustrating instead of a refuge. Brian grits his teeth.

 

Just before he leaves, he drags the newest piece into his Recycle Bin and slams the laptop shut. His skin itches a little from all the coffee.

 

He likes Albuquerque. He’d never stay there, but it has its own charm.

 

Brian’s seen too much of the world not to know that things exist independently of him, that things go on and continue to grow and change without him being there.

 

Albuquerque is like that.

 

_Yeah, Albuquerque_ , the little voice of doubt says in the back of his mind. To Brian, it sounds like Freddie.

 

* * *

 

Brian sleeps for a few hours in the back seat of his rental car when the coffee wears off. The seats are uncomfortably narrow, and the fake new car smell makes him a little nauseous and a lot restless, twisting futilely. He wakes up to a cop tapping on his window, and sits up, yawning.

 

He moves along. Just underneath the surface, his skin still itches.

 

Brian needs more coffee.

 

* * *

 

He picks up his phone on a whim when it rings near the border of New Mexico and Colorado, putting it on speaker and throwing it so it bounces on the passenger seat. There’s a moment of silence after he hits the answer button, the only sound the wind whooshing through his open windows and the gravel crunching underneath the wheels. Brian clears his throat.

 

“Uh, hi?”

 

“Brian? Mate, where the fuck are you?”

 

Roger’s voice is thin and tinny but unquestionably pissed off. Brian loosens his hands on the wheel and shrugs to himself.

 

“Uh, still in New Mexico. I think. I might have missed the border sign, so it might be Colorado. I’m not sure.”

 

There’s a pause.

 

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

 

Brian thinks about it for a moment, and pushes the button to roll up the windows. Inside the car quiets.

 

“No, not really. I’m pretty sure it’s still New Mexico.”

 

Brian can picture Roger at home, grinding his teeth, fists clenched. He breathes out, one long steady exhale. Something inside him feels shaky. The car goes  _thump thump thump_  over the reflectors in the middle of the road, and Brian jerks the wheel to the left.

 

“Brian, shit, man. We were worried.”

 

“I’m sorry?”

 

It’s unmistakably a question. Brian isn’t sure if he’s sorry. Half of him is. The other half, not so much.

 

There’s another long moment of silence, and Brian wishes for the sound of the wind again, the sound of speeding down the highway, completely isolated from the rest of the world.

 

“Brian, are you,” weighty pause, “okay?”

 

Is he pulling a Freddie?

 

“Yeah, Rog. I’ll be home in a few days."

 

Brian hangs up. No. He’s not pulling a Freddie. Right now, he’s the furthest away from Freddie he’s been since he met him, and he’s okay.

 

* * *

 

Freddie uses the spare key Brian thinks he doesn’t know about to get into Brian’s house. He lies on the floor of Brian’s den and stares at the ceiling.

 

Freddie racks his brain for what could have happened, and comes up with nothing but the steadily growing pit of sadness that’s taken root in his chest.

 

* * *

 

Two in the morning at 100 mph on the freeway, Denver skyline just visible on the horizon, and Brian thinks  _enough_. The wheel is solid under his palms and he blinks, steady and slow. Okay. Enough.

 

He feels awake.

 

* * *

 

The disappearing thing is too easy. Reappearing is just as easy. Brian hands over his credit card, signs his name, and is on his way home on the next flight.

 

Brian sits on the plane and slouches, thinking about smaller and smaller circles, about inevitable destinations and about the ways to get there. For every deliberate thought there are four whispers behind it that say the opposite. Brian squashes them all ruthlessly.

 

He doesn’t understand the half of what it is he’s thinking, but he’s okay with that.

 

* * *

 

It’s just a little bit before dawn when Brian shuts off the engine, swings his legs out from the car. It’s quiet and utterly still and Brian can feel reality imposing itself on his mind again, a litany of  _workworkmajorfifthFreddieampsworkFreddieFreddieFreddie_. He pulls his duffel from the back seat and shrugs his shoulders to settle his clothing. He feels disgusting, bathed in days of travel and grit. He swings the duffel over his shoulder, clinks his keys in his palm.

 

The rosebushes need pruning. All his neighbors (nice, normal people) are still asleep. Brian can see light from his television through the gap in his curtains.

 

The lawn needs edging.

 

Brian’s front door swings open soundlessly under his hand when he goes to push his keys in. Unlocked, and Brian steps through. He drops his keys on the table and his duffel on the floor, and cranes his head around the corner to look into his den. It looks like a natural disaster has hit it, and Brian isn’t even the slightest bit surprised. Freddie is curled up on his couch, artificial light playing over his face. His eyes are wide, wide and impossibly brown. He looks vulnerable. Brian doesn’t know how he’s meant to feel.

 

“I’m sorry- for whatever the fuck it was I did, darling, I am so fucking sorry. Just-“

 

Sometimes, Freddie has too many words. Brian’s voice is mild as he settles down on the couch next to Freddie, and Freddie curls into him automatically. He smells like Freddie, spicy and a little unwashed, and he’s a blanket of warmth that covers Brian from shoulder to knee on one side. One of Freddie’s hands clenches on Brian’s shirt, over Brian’s stomach, fisting desperately and trying to pull him closer. His knuckles press into Brian’s skin.

 

“What were you going to do if I didn’t come back, just live in my house?”

 

Freddie flinches. His eyes are brown, brown, brown.

 

“Don’t leave,” Freddie whispers.

 

Brian closes his eyes.

 

“I love you too, Fred.”

 

* * *

 

Brian falls into his own bed gratefully. Outside, the sun is rising, bright and relentlessly cheerful. Freddie crawls in after him, presses himself to Brian’s back. It’s a lot of contact all at once, more than Brian’s had in ages. Brian sighs, feels Freddie’s bare feet against his sneakers. He’s just about asleep when he hears Freddie whisper.

 

“Why’d you go?”

 

Brian thinks about pretending he’s asleep, thinks about telling Freddie that he changed his mind and came home early. Thinks about telling Freddie that he wasn’t coming back at all, that he’s leaving again tomorrow. Thinks again.

 

“I’m- I-“

 

Freddie’s grip tightens.

 

“I’m  _tired_ , Freddie.”

 

Brian tenses, waiting for an answer.

 

“Oh. Okayokayokay.”

 

And Freddie doesn’t let go.


End file.
